Sanjay Parmar

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<i>“In God we trust; all others must bring data.”</i><p>That famous line from statistician William Edwards Deming has become a mantra for data-driven companies, because it points to the promise of finding objective answers. But in practice, as every analyst knows, interpreting data is a messy, subjective …

The ripple effects of too many meetings can be astonishing. Take this quick and horrifying interactive: It shows how a weekly excom meeting at one company generated a total of 300,000 person hours per year to support it:<p>But there’s hope! While a whole host of cultural changes need to take place to …

Before I became a business school professor, I worked as a management consultant. One engagement in particular had a profound influence on my career. The project involved working with the Asia-based sales force of a global consumer products company. This company practiced “route sales,” which meant …

Storytelling with data is having its moment in the journalism world. After leaving <i>The New York Times</i> last year, Nate Silver has launched his new data journalism venture with ESPN , former <i>Washington Post</i> blogger and columnist Ezra Klein is expanding his chart-filled approach beyond public policy at …

So with that, here is a full breakdown of how I like to look through a 10-K for the first time, what's important to focus on, and what can be glazed over (if anything) to save time and/or not confuse yourself. As always, I'll field questions afterwards if and when I feel like it to clear anything …

Now that we’ve discussed when data visualization works — and when it doesn’t, let’s delve into what makes a successful data visualization. Although there are a number of criteria, including ease of comprehension and aesthetics, I’d like to explore the three that designers most often overlook.<p><b>1. It</b> …

Do you ever wonder why cars aren’t called “horseless carriages” anymore? Today’s cars are just as horseless as they were a century ago. Horselessness is standard equipment on most new and late models, both foreign and domestic.<p>Framing the question this way may seem a bit absurd; yet, it’s a playful …

Are companies creating their own skills gap? While much of the skills deficit in the U.S. is fueled by a sheer lack of high skill labor for in-demand occupations, a recent CareerBuilder study of more than 2,000 companies suggests that employers may unwittingly be playing a part. Half of hiring …

What if your ideas didn’t matter?<p>For senior marketers, it is a very humbling thought. What if your ideas, your thoughts and even your experience as a trained marketing professional didn’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of the brand’s actual advertising performance? What if everything you have …

An excellent visualization, according to Edward Tufte, expresses “complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency.” I would add that an excellent visualization also tells a story through the graphical depiction of statistical information. As I discussed in an earlier post, …

One of my young clients, let’s call her Julie, is on a mission. Julie has an idea, one that has been gestating in her mind for quite some time, but now she realizes that for her idea to have any impact at all she will have to “go public” with it. Julie believes there are countless intelligent, …

It is clear that a new age is upon us. Evidence-based decision-making (aka Big Data) is not just the latest fad, it’s the future of how we are going to guide and grow business. But let’s be very clear: There is a huge distinction to be made between “evidence” and “data.” The former is the end game …

Enrique Llamas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Lacking confidence? Not a team player? Not willing to contribute to group discussions? Enrique had thought he was all of those things. So why did he receive such a negative performance evaluation? Enrique felt hurt by the news and wanted to …

A Columbia undergraduate travels deep into the bowels of Schermerhorn Hall, home of the Motivation Science Center’s underground laboratories. (We would actually prefer to have windows, but what can you do?) He comes here to fill out a few questionnaires in exchange for $5. When he is finished, he’s …

During the past few months I’ve sat through hundreds of presentations while attending conferences and the company meetings of my clients. Overall, I would rate half of them as being average and a quarter of them as just plain terrible. How can we all work to improve those numbers?<p>There’s an …

If you want to become a leader, don’t wait for the fancy title or the corner office. You can begin to act, think, and communicate like a leader long before that promotion. Even if you’re still several levels down and someone else is calling all the shots, there are numerous ways to demonstrate your …

Many people assume that it’s possible for a person to be an effective leader without being likable. That is technically true, but you may not like the odds. In a study of 51,836 leaders, we found just 27 who were rated at the bottom quartile in terms of likability but in the top quartile in terms …

Those of us who believe that managers make better decisions when key data are presented visually tend to get very excited about all the innovation going on in the graphical display of information. (For a sampling of some new and cool tools, see the popular Hans Rosling TED talk.) However, if you …